


More Than A Memory

by ADifferentTime



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Dealing with a break up, F/M, Jughead Jones Loves Betty Cooper, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-04-20 18:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADifferentTime/pseuds/ADifferentTime
Summary: Dealing with their break up would be a lot easier if he didn't still love her so much.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Kudos: 35





	More Than A Memory

**Author's Note:**

> The song is More Than A Memory by Garth Brooks

_People say she's only in my head, it's gonna take time but I'll forget_

_They say I need to get on with my life, they don't realize_

They'd fallen apart spectacularly at the end of their senior year. It had happened gradually, then all at once. They'd started fighting, the distance and the stress getting to both of them, until one night just before graduation Cheryl had thrown a party and they'd both been drinking a little too much. They said things they couldn't take back, things they both knew cut right to the core, and to make it worse it had happened in front of everybody. 

The next day Betty had left the Cooper/Jones house despite protests from her mother and had moved in with Veronica for the rest of the school year and the summer. Jughead couldn't keep himself from wallowing in his own guilt and regret, so much so that everyone around him noticed it. He wanted to apologize, to make things right, but he couldn't find the words to do it. For once in his life, words eluded him.

Everyone around him, from Archie to Sweet Pea, even Reggie, told him that he needed to move on with his life. They said that it would all just become a memory in time but none of them truly understood any of it. They'd been there when he and Betty got together, through all the ups and downs of their relationship, but they didn't truly understand it. They'd been held at a distance, outside observers of the relationship, and they didn't understand that he couldn't just forget about it.

_When you're dialing six numbers just to hang up the phone, driving across town just to see if she's home_

_Waking a friend in the dead of night just to hear him say it's gonna be alright_

Jughead spent less and less time at home, too many memories held in the walls around him, but there was really no where in town that didn't carry some reminder of her. No matter where he went he couldn't escape thoughts of her, which had him picking up his phone and dialing her number before he realized that he still didn't know what to say and he wasn't sure if he could handle it if she rejected his call without even answering so he'd turn his phone off and shove it deep in his pocket where he didn't have to look at it.

More often than was probably healthy, he'd find himself hoping on his bike and driving past the Pembrooke just to see if her car was parked out front or not. He always justified it with some excuse, he needed to get something from the grocery store around the corner from the building or that he was just taking a drive and happened to pass it, but he could never lie to himself for long. Some days, he'd fantasize about stopping and going up to speak to her but he never allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy. He'd screwed up royally and lost the best thing to ever happen to him. It wasn't something he could fix.

The nights when he found it hard to sleep, laying in the room that used to be hers on the bed the used to share, he would call Archie just so that he didn't have to think to hard about the empty space beside him. Archie always saw through it though and told him that everything would be alright.

_When you're finding things to do not to fall asleep, 'cause you know she'll be there in your dreams_

_That's when she's more than a memory_

Betty showed up in his dreams most nights so he soon found other things to occupy his mind and keep himself awake. He'd read a book he'd been meaning to but had never got around to, play video games with the sound turned down so he wouldn't wake anyone else in the house, and when he got really desperate he'd rearrange his clothing drawers. None of it worked though because eventually he'd still fall asleep and she was always waiting there for him.

After the first few weeks he thought that it would surely stop but it never did. His subconscious was latched onto her firmly and refused to let go. It was then that he knew they were all wrong, he'd never forget about her. Their relationship would never fade from his memories. She was there, everywhere he looked, and he knew that it would never change. She was so much more than just a memory.

_Took a match to everything she ever wrote, watched her words go up in smoke_

_Tore all her pictures off the wall, that ain't helping me at all_

In a desperate attempt at stripping her from his mind he pulled out the box full of notes that they'd exchanged throughout their relationship and had sat in the backyard with a box of matches, watching as the paper curled around the edges and the words burned away. He pulled all the pictures of them together off the walls of the bedroom and brought them down with him but he couldn't bring himself to burn them as well.

It left him sitting on the back stoop with the pictures cradled in his hands and the smell of smoke in the air as he bit his lip and sucked in fast breaths to keep the tears from falling. That's how his father found him and he just sighed as he gently pulled the pictures from his fingers and brought him inside. He poured Jughead a small glass of whiskey and left him in the kitchen as he took the pictures away. Jughead wasn't sure what he did with them but in the end, it didn't matter because none of it helped anyway. He still felt the pain in his chest every time he thought about her.

_'Cause when you're talking out loud but nobody's there, you look like hell and you just don't care_

_Drinking more than you ever drank, sinking down lower than you ever sank_

Being alone became Jughead's default. He stopped hanging out with his friends because he could see them all desperately trying to avoid mentioning Betty even in passing and he stopped caring about what he looked like. He'd pace his room, as he spoke to himself trying to find the words to apologize. Trying to figure out how to fix things. There was no him without her and he needed her back in his life.

The longer it took to figure out what to say and the further away she slipped from him, the more he turned to alcohol to numb the pain. He knew he was falling into the same hole that his father had but he couldn't stop himself. The alcohol made it easier to bare and if he drank enough it kept the dreams at bay too. He could see the concerned looks from his dad and sister and even from Alice Cooper but he didn't let it affect him. He was dealing with it in the only way he knew how.

_When you find yourself falling down upon your knees, praying to God begging him please_

_That's when she's more than a memory. She's more, she's more._

Jughead had never been particularly religious but he was desperate. He knew that he needed to talk to her himself, that God wasn't just going to fix everything for him, but he took a moment to beg for the courage to face her. He'd been putting it off for fear of rejection. He wasn't sure he could handle if if she flat out refused him after he poured his heart out to her.

Everyone talking about moving on and forgetting their relationship were stupid. He could never forget that she was the one who stood by him through everything that their hellscape town had thrown at them. Their relationship was different than most, deeper, ad he knew that was why it was so hard to let go of and why he was fighting so hard not to.

_'Cause when you're dialing her number just to hang up the phone, driving across town just to see if she's home _

_Waking a friend in the dead of night, just to hear him say it's gonna be alright_

He still hadn't gotten up the courage to see her when it came time to pack up and go to New York to start college and he learned through Archie, who had slipped up and said it without thinking, that she had moved into an apartment a few blocks from theirs with Veronica. Betty and Veronica had both gotten into NYU just like he had and Archie had just tagged along to New York to get out of Riverdale, so they ended up in the same place.

A few weeks in to living in New York he found himself dialing her number once again but when he heard the ringing through the line he'd panicked and hung up before she answered, hoping desperately that the call hadn't been long enough to show up in her recents. He turned the phone off completely and shoved it into a drawer just in case she tried to call back, he wasn't ready to deal with it yet.

He knew it was particularly stalkerish but he couldn't help it as he found himself walking the few blocks to Veronica and Betty's apartment just to see if Betty was home. One time he made it all the way up to her floor before he chickened out and turned around without knocking on the door. Some nights when he couldn't sleep, he'd go to the kitchen and make coffee, inadvertently waking Archie who would sit with him and talk. Archie would give him sad looks when he thought Jughead wasn't paying attention and tell him that it would be alright, just like he had been doing for weeks, before he left to go back to sleep. It was those moments that Jughead found himself grateful for his best friend.

_When you're finding things to do not to fall asleep 'cause you know she's waiting in your dreams_

_That's when she's more than a memory_

They'd been apart for four months when the dreams about Betty started changing. Before it had been innocuous, just casual everyday moments that he'd dream about, but it became so much worse. His dreams transformed into nightmares where he'd lost her to something more sinister than a breakup. With everything they'd been through together, it all manifested in nightmares of her covered in blood crying out for him, each time with a different killer. It made it worse that he couldn't just reach out for her and reassure himself that she was safe. It always took a few painful minutes after he jerked awake to reorient himself and remember what had actually happened.

He spent hours trying to keep himself awake, doing assignments that didn't need to be completed for weeks and downing full pots of coffee, but none of it worked so eventually he went back to the alcohol. It numbed his mind and allowed him to sleep without dreaming. Now it was Archie giving him looks of concern rather than his family but he waved him off and assured him that he was fine. He knew Archie didn't believe him. 

_People say she's only in my head, it's gonna take time but I'll forget._

The last thing Jughead is expecting is for the pounding at his door to be Betty Cooper. He stares at her for a moment wondering if he'd drank to much last night and was now having an alcohol poisoning induced hallucination. That thought is proven wrong when she shoves past him into the apartment. He closes the door quickly and spins to look at her as he leans against it. She has her hands on her hips and she's glaring at him but all he can think about is how this is a close as they've been to one another in months. It makes him acutely aware that he looks a mess in pajamas he'd been wearing for days now and his uncombed hair but she doesn't seem to care about that at all.

"What the hell are you doing?!" She exclaimed.

"Um..." Jughead responded at a loss for words.

"Seriously Jughead, Archie called me because he's worried about you. You're not sleeping, you're drinking way too much. What the hell is going on with you?" She shouted. "You know your father is an alcoholic which means you're more likely to become one. What are you doing?"

Jughead stared at her for a long moment. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were burning with the sparks of anger she was displaying. She'd been this angry before but never at him.

"I can't sleep okay?!" He exclaimed. "The alcohol helps. Makes it easier."

"Why can't you sleep?" She asked and he heard a note of concern in her voice under the anger.

"Because of you." He said, leaving her staring at her with her mouth parted slightly. "That night, we both said some things we didn't mean and it ruined us. I lost you, the most important person in my life, and I can't cope. You are in every part of my heart Betty and no matter what I do I can't get you out. It hurts to even think about you." He ran a hand through his hair, his own anger and pent up emotions coming to him. "I have nightmares every night about losing you and when I wake up, you aren't there. I know we hurt each other, I know things ended badly, but I can't shake you."

"Jug." She said quietly as she took a step toward him but he was finally saying all the things he needed too and he couldn't stop the words from coming.

"I wish I hated you." He said harshly. "I wish I hated you because maybe then, it wouldn't hurt so much. But I don't hate you Betty, I could never hate you. That night we should have just walked away. We should have waited until we were both sober. I said things I didn't believe just because I knew they'd hurt you and I hate myself for that everyday and I know that you said things like that too, because you were angry." He moved to take her hands in his. "Only someone you truly love can hurt you the way that we did each other and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry for using the things you shared with me against you. But most of all, I'm sorry for ever saying that I don't love you because that will never be true. I love you more than anything in the world and I hope that you still feel the same. Please, tell me you feel the same."

"Juggie." She said, her voice soft, all the anger gone. "I told you once before that I don't think I can ever stop loving you. We screwed up that night but we can fix it. One thing I've learned over these months apart is that I need you in my life more than I've ever needed anything before. I still feel the same."

"I love you." He repeated before he pulled her in for a kiss. She responded in kind and soon they were stumbling toward his room, leaving a trail of clothes behind them, as they came together again. He put all of his emotion, all of his regret and apology, into each touch and he felt her doing the same. They held each other tight as they moved together in a dance that was as familiar to them as breathing.

After it was over, Betty laid next to him with her head on his chest and the sheets pulled up around them and she placed a soft kiss on his skin as she breathed out a sigh.

"Jug, I think you should consider going to an AA meeting." She said softly, almost like she was afraid of his reaction. "You said you were drinking to help you sleep, to help you cope. It's not healthy."

"I know." He breathed out. "I'll look for one tomorrow. I promise."

"Good." She answered. "I'm sorry, for everything."

"I know." He said as he kissed her on the top of the head.

They weren't fixed, not completely at least, but he knew they'd work it out. They always did. It would take some work for them to learn to trust one another again, something they both acknowledged. They started therapy, with personal and joint sessions, to work through their issues. Some days were better than others but they stuck by one another and faced it like they faced everything, together. 


End file.
